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WinnersBeyond Peak Scenario Contest |
Beyond Fossil Fuels: The Electron Economy
By Jeffrey M. Becker
Introduction
The decades following peak oil will be a period of transition from a world where energy is cheap and abundant in many forms to one where energy is more expensive and most available in just one form - electricity. Experts predict that the decline in oil production will begin within a decade and play out over a period of about fifty years. Worldwide natural gas and coal production will increase for a couple of decades as those resources are converted into liquid fuels to compensate for declining oil production. A decade or so after peak oil peak, natural gas will peak and go into decline. Some number of decades after that, coal will peak and it too will go into decline. The peak for all fossil fuel production combined will likely occur somewhere between peak oil and peak natural gas as show in Figure 1.
Figure 1 - Fossil Fuel Peaks
The transition period could have a longer tail than shown due to reduced demand on fossil fuels. Efficiency improvements, widespread adoption of alternative energy sources, and economic downturns, could all result in reduced demand. New discoveries and enhanced recovery technology could also extend the tail. Even at the end of the transition period, there will still be some oil, natural gas, and coal available. The reserves that remain will be the least accessible and of the lowest quality. Although the timing portrayed in Figure 1 may be inaccurate, the big picture is not. Fossil fuels are a finite non-renewable resource, and they are being consumed at an unsustainable pace.
The backdrop for this scene of changing energy sources is an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented proportions in the making — a global meltdown driven by global warming . There is a consensus among scientists that the culprit is CO2, a greenhouse gas, and combustion of fossil fuels is largely responsible for the increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Glaciers in all parts of the world and the ice caps at both poles are melting at a dramatic pace, raising sea levels. Glaciers in Greenland alone store enough water to raise sea levels over 20 feet. A global meltdown could raise sea levels by over 200 feet . Not only are coastal cities and low-lying areas threatened, but water supplies and agriculture around the world will be affected in unpredictable ways. If the current rate of meltdown is to be slowed and eventually reversed, the world must either find cleaner ways to use fossil fuels, or strictly limit their use long before they run out.
The dashed lines in Figure 1 illustrate an alternative where use of coal is limited due to global warming concerns. Based on recently publicized data, it is conceivable that all fossil fuel use will need to be limited sooner, resulting in lower peaks and longer tails than illustrated. This would be challenging in the near term, but would have numerous beneficial long term effects for humanity. It is also conceivable that greed will prevail and coal will be exploited to the maximum extent possible, resulting in higher peak coal production than illustrated in the solid line, but a sharper decline post-peak.
This scenario is about how the US might make up the widening difference between energy supply from fossil fuels and energy demand in years to come, and how that might affect our lives. The challenge in producing an optimistic scenario is to find plausible ways of not only replacing fossil fuels as an energy source, but also as a feedstock for chemical processes used to create many essential products. It then becomes possible to address what must be done to make the transition as painless as possible. If many things go right, modern society will survive and even flourish with a new appreciation for sustainable practices. It all comes down to making the correct choices. We have the technology. Do we have the will?
Assumptions
When oil production goes into decline, the faster it drops the more damaging the results will be to modern economies. This is based on the assumption that businesses and individuals won't start reacting in substantial way to the realities of declining oil production until it hits them in the pocketbook. Because it will take decades to make the necessary adjustments, if oil production drops too fast, all reactions will be too little too late. In a worst-case scenario , world economies will go into economic depression and then collapse , and there will be too little economic activity remaining to recover before massive deprivation takes its toll. There are many ways a sudden drop in oil production could happen, including natural disasters , widespread war in the Middle East , terrorist attacks on oil facilities, embargoes by oil producing nations, and mismanagement of oil fields. I'm assuming that, after peak oil, world oil production will decline at a manageable rate with only minor disruptions. There's really no way to justify this assumption, but if it doesn't hold, the pessimists win.
I'm assuming that human nature will remain the same. The sudden realization that the gasoline, diesel, and other oil-based products will remain expensive indefinitely will not make people any less fearful, greedy, selfish, lazy, credulous, or driven by status than they are now. People won't suddenly get smarter, hard working, and more responsible just because that would make it all work out. Some will remain in denial for a long time. Most people will continue to love and demand mobility. Most people will continue to have no clue about what "permaculture" means. Entrenched ideological divisions will remain. Even so, efforts to raise public awareness are essential for preparing people to accept the changes that will be needed.
Many businesses, governments, and individuals have begun to anticipate peak oil and take steps to prepare. I'm assuming this will continue at an accelerating pace. Like any transitional period, the decline of oil will create money making opportunities for entrepreneurs who can spot a need and provide a product to fill it. Major new industries will be created. Demand for new energy sources and raw materials that can replace petroleum will be high. People will try desperately to keep things the way they are now. There's a lot of money invested in a lot of infrastructure and people aren't going to walk away from homes and businesses start working the land unless there is no other choice. I think Americans will rise to the challenge. If this assumption is wrong and everyone just sits around waiting for someone else to fix the problem for them, the pessimists win.
The Great Transition
To develop this scenario for the transition from peak oil to end of fossil fuels (EOFF), I examined how energy efficiency can be improved in a number of sectors: transportation, homes and buildings, communities, industry, and agriculture. I also examined the efficiency of fuel production and use by various methods. The conclusion I arrived at is that for most applications, in the absence of fossil fuels, the production and direct use of electricity provides the best efficiency. There are exceptions, and those will be discussed.
The resulting transition in energy supplies is illustrated in Figure 2. This figure shows how large commercial interests (electric and gas utilities, oil companies, etc.) will obtain the energy that they distribute. Except for the first bar, which shows recent data, these diagrams are based on the analysis that follows. More details on current energy consumption can be found here .
Figure 2 - Energy Sources: Peak Oil to End of Fossil Fuels
The most debatable aspect of this figure is the proportion of energy that is derived from wind, solar, hydroelectric and geothermal (WSHG) sources versus nuclear power. I think that in the eastern US, economic factors will tip the balance in favor of nuclear power as far as utility companies are concerned. In the western US, where sun, wind, and geothermal sources are the most plentiful, economic factors will favor renewables. I also think there will be widespread use of privately owned solar and geothermal equipment that will greatly reduce demand on the electrical grid.
Use of biomass for energy production will be limited at all times by competition with food production, and at EOFF by competition with food production and materials production (e.g., plastics and fertilizers). New sources of biomass, e.g., commercial algae production or plankton farming, could result in much greater use of biomass and higher availability of liquid fuels.
At EOFF, all available sources of energy can be used efficiently for production of electricity. However, it has been proposed that some nuclear energy be used for thermal electrolysis of water to produce large quantities of hydrogen. Similar proposals have been made to, for example, use solar energy to produce methane from water and air , which could then be piped into the natural gas distribution system. These schemes will succeed if they are economically competitive, which depends to a great extent on how efficiently source energy is delivered to end users, and then how efficiently the energy can then be applied to the task at hand. First, let's look at how a modern industrial society could most efficiently structure its energy supply and usage and provide feedstocks for materials manufacturing without any fossil fuels, then we'll look into surviving the transition.
Energy Efficiency
Currently, energy consumption in the US is divided approximately equally between transportation, energy needs of buildings (private and commercial), and industry (manufacturing). What are the most efficient ways to consume energy in these sectors?
Transportation
A lot of peak oil discussion focuses on transportation, and for good reason. The bulk of petroleum use in the US is for transportation. At EOFF, gaseous and liquid fuels will have to be synthesized. With electricity as the input, an optimistic estimate of the energy value of the resulting hydrogen fuel would be about 75% of the input energy. With heat as the input, thermal electrolysis is more efficient (50%) than generating electricity and then producing hydrogen from the resulting electricity (40% x 75% = 30%). Synthesizing GTL Diesel from methane that is in turn synthesized from hydrogen is not likely to exceed 80% energy efficiency.
Fuel cell efficiency is potentially quite high for pure hydrogen; perhaps 75% will eventually be achieved in a practical device. Diesel engines are about half as efficient as fuel cells. However, battery or capacitor storage has the potential for even higher efficiency than fuel cells, as much as 85-95%.
|
Energy Source |
GTL Diesel (40%) |
H2 Fuel Cell (75%) |
Battery (90%) |
|
Solar/Wind Electricity |
24% (.75 x .80 x .40) |
56% (.75 x .75) |
90% |
|
Thermal H2 |
16% (.50 x .80 x .40) |
37% (.50 x .75) |
N/A |
|
Thermal Electricity (Rankine Cycle) |
10% (.30 x .80 x .40) |
22.5% (.30 x .75) |
36% (.40 x .90) |
Table 1 — Transportation Energy: Production Efficiency x Consumption Efficiency
Table 1 shows the combined production and consumption efficiency for various combinations of energy sources and portable power devices. Note that the figures for Solar/Wind Electricity and Thermal power (e.g., solar or nuclear) are not directly comparable, but the figures for Thermal H2 and Thermal Electricity are. Distribution losses are not included, but are generally higher for hydrogen than for electricity. These are ballpark figures only, to get a rough idea of how these different approaches compare.
Based on this broad-brush efficiency analysis, and the expected capabilities of batteries, it seems reasonable to expect that light-duty transportation will be primarily battery powered, and heavy-duty transportation will primarily use fuel cells. Where direct connection to the electric grid is possible, e.g., for railroads, that will be the preferred approach.
Use of liquid fuels, such as ethanol, methanol, GTL diesel, and liquid hydrogen, will be limited to special cases, such as heavy construction equipment, farm equipment, and aircraft. The transition from the current vehicle fleet to the EOFF vehicle fleet is discussed in more detail in later sections.
Space Heating and Cooling of Buildings
About 50% of the energy currently supplied to buildings is in the form of natural gas. Some heating is still done with fuel oil. The remainder of the energy is delivered as electricity. In the short term, it is desirable to keep the natural gas flowing so people and plumbing don't freeze. The long term picture is different.
|
Heating Efficiency |
Cooling Efficiency |
|
|
Standard Gas Furnace |
78-84% |
N/A |
|
Condensing Gas Furnace |
90-97% |
N/A |
|
Standard Air Conditioner |
N/A |
200%-350% |
|
Geothermal Heat Pump |
250%-450% |
1000%-2400% |
Table 2 — Space Heating and Cooling Efficiency
Standard and condensing gas furnaces are less than 100% efficient because some of the heat from the natural gas is lost out the flue. Electrically powered geothermal heat pumps are more than 100% efficient for heating because heat is "pumped" from the earth. Air conditioning is even more efficient because heat is pumped back into the earth which is generally cooler than the building (45-58 degrees F). At EOFF, when electricity is abundant but natural gas is not, it will not make good economic sense to convert electricity into methane for space heating.
Industry
About 50% of the energy used by industry is in the form of natural gas and about 25% is oil. The remainder is electricity and coal. It is difficult to make too many broad statements about energy efficiency in industry because there are so many unique processes with different energy use and loss footprints . I think it is safe to say that much of the energy is used for process heat. It is inefficient to convert heat to electricity and then back into heat. As fossil fuels become scarce, many industries will need to consider relocating near a nuclear power plant which can provide high temperature steam or lower temperature waste heat, near a source of geothermal heat in the required temperature range, or to the sunny southwest where solar thermal equipment will be the most cost-effective.
Replacing Products made from Oil and Natural Gas
Oil is not just used to supply energy; roughly 15% of oil consumed in the US is used as a feedstock in numerous chemical processes. Some products, such as plastics and lubricants, are familiar and ubiquitous. Many products made from natural gas, such as fertilizers, are vital to survival of modern society. The two main replacements for oil in chemical industries will be farm products ("bio" inputs), and methane (CH4). Initially, natural gas will be the primary source of methane. Since natural gas will go into decline a couple of decades after oil, a replacement will be needed for it as well. Methane is easily produced from coal , renewable resources, and a great many waste products. Biomass used early on in the transition period to create liquid fuels may be needed late in the transition to produce methane or otherwise serve as a chemical process feedstock for producing materials, as illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3 - Use of Biomass for Fuels vs. Materials Production
Methane can also be produced from water, CO2, and electricity, although for some chemical processes it is simpler to just produce hydrogen by electrolysis of water and use the hydrogen. Methane synthesized this way is likely to be more expensive than methane from biomass, but could still be competitive if electricity is cheap or biomass expensive. In any case, given sufficient biomass and electrical power, the end of oil does not mean the end of familiar oil products. Let's look at a few examples.
Plastics
Plastics are often used as an example of a modern material that is produced from petroleum. Like bio-fuels, bio-plastics are not only possible , but already in production. In many cases, these plastics have been developed for their special properties such as biodegradability , not just to reduce dependence on oil. The obvious drawback is that bio-plastics, like some bio-fuels, will be competing for products that can be used for food.
Plastic feedstock chemicals (ethylene, propylene, toluene, olefins), as well as other useful chemicals, can also be produced from methane using various versions of the Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) process. This is becoming an increasingly important way of making use of "stranded" natural gas which is otherwise difficult to transport.
Ammonia
Ammonia is an essential input to modern agriculture as a component of fertilizers. It is also widely used in the chemical industry. Currently, most ammonia is made from natural gas using the Haber process, with lesser amounts being produced by other processes. Ammonia production has been moving out of the US to overseas facilities as natural gas supplies in the US have become more expensive. Since methane is used as a source of hydrogen in the ammonia production process, hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water (or other methods) could be substituted for methane. Nitrogen, the other component of ammonia, can be isolated from air by various means requiring only electricity as an input. So, ammonia can be made from water, air, heat and electricity.
Lubricants
Lubricants are another product category typically associated with oil. Synthetic lubricants have been around for many years. These lubricants are generally produced from natural gas using the F-T process. This is another example of the versatility of methane and F-T. Although synthetic lubricants are currently more expensive than petroleum-based lubricants, they generally have superior lubricating properties and a longer service life, so they can compete in today's marketplace. They will continue to be available in the distant future.
Petroleum: Still Great Stuff
Because oil is a blend of many different components and it can be manipulated chemically in a great variety of ways, there is no single substitute for oil. However, alternative processes with different feedstocks can produce many of the products we associate with oil. Substitutes tend to be more expensive than the irrationally cheap oil that has been available for the past several decades, but they do exist. The more oil we can conserve now, the more we will have available later. Sources that are difficult to extract economically now, like tar sands, could provide a materials feedstock source for a long time, if they aren't needlessly wasted due to lack of foresight.
The Electron Economy
Having established that electrical power will be the foundation of the post-fossil-fuel energy distribution system, let's take a quick look at different non-fossil-fuel sources of electrical power, get an idea of the advantages, limitations, environmental dangers, potential contribution, and relative cost of each in order to get a rough idea of how each might be expanded.
Wind
Wind power is currently experiencing dramatic growth. This is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This expansion in wind generating capacity is still in the early stages, and there is a lot of prime territory yet to be developed. Large wind turbines have a relatively small "footprint" and can be compatible with farming and ranching of land around the base. When I signed up for "Windsource" power a few years ago it cost more than other power and I was charged extra for it. Now I get a small credit on my bill, indicating a small price advantage for wind power generation at current natural gas prices. As natural gas becomes increasingly scarce and expensive, increased investment in wind power will be a no-brainer.
Wind power alone has the potential to produce over 2.5 times the current US electrical generating capacity based on estimates of available wind energy in the 20 windiest states. However, using wind as more than a minor contributor (above 20%) to the electrical grid involves solving certain problems. The first and biggest problem with wind from an electrical grid management perspective is its variability. To compensate for the variability in the wind and thus the power generated, large power storage systems must be built. The most economical technology to use for power storage will depend on where the storage system is to be located. The second problem is that the biggest wind sources are often far from population centers. This problem can be solved with additional transmission lines. Both of these solutions can amount to rather large infrastructure investments, significantly raising the cost of wind power.
Solar
The sun is ultimately the source of most power available on the earth. It has been used in many different ways by mankind for all of recorded history. It is not yet a significant source of electricity, but new technologies promise economic advantages that will start solar on its way to supplying a significant part of the electric power produced in the US.
The high-efficiency "concentrator" solar cell is starting to appear in plans for large solar power installations. Instead of a using large sheet of silicon with less than 20% efficiency, concentrator cells use mirrors or lenses to concentrate the sun by 100 to 500 times on a small, multi-layer solar cell with over 35% efficiency. Because silicon is expensive compared to mirrors and lenses, concentrator cells make good economic sense. High efficiency concentrator cells allow smaller equipment to collect more energy, which has a big impact on the overall economics of the system.
Solar thermal electric power generation is also becoming an increasingly viable option. A recently completed one megawatt solar thermal power installation in Arizona uses parabolic trough shaped mirrors to heat oil which is in turn used to vaporize a secondary liquid that drives a turbine. A tank stores energy in the form of hot oil so the plant can provide energy when the sun is not shining for some unspecified period of time. Solar thermal power can also be used to save fuel in conventional coal or gas fired power plants. These systems work by using a solar collector to preheat water before it enters the regular boiler. This approach can be applied to any steam-driven power station in a sunny area and would be an inexpensive, low risk approach to adding solar generating capacity during the transition period. Providing power storage for a solar thermal system is relatively straightforward, requiring only a pair of large tanks (one hot, one cold), a heat exchanger, and a suitable working fluid.
Other approaches to cost competitive large-scale solar power include the use of concentrator dishes with Stirling engines, direct production of hydrogen from solar energy and water, and use of solar energy for heating rather than to produce electricity.
Big solar power installations will require significant land areas, on the order of 14 square miles per Gigawatt. The total current electric generating capacity of the US could be matched with solar installations covering about 12% of New Mexico. Besides real estate acquisition costs, using solar energy to power the national electrical grid suffers from the same weakness as wind power: it is variable, and the best areas for solar power generation tend to be sparsely populated. The solutions are the same: new power storage and transmission infrastructure.
The most cost effective installations for early adoption of large-scale solar power will be near large cities in the desert southwest with high peak loads in the middle of the day. If this can be done profitably, and the cost of installations can be reduced, e.g., by mass production, then further growth into markets requiring power storage for balancing electricity supply and demand can be considered. If the cost of power becomes high enough, solar provides more than enough potential to meet demand.
Geothermal
Among renewable energy sources, geothermal is the most capable of supplying a constant power output 24/7 year after year. Potential geothermal energy sites are widely distributed, mostly in the western US. The US had 2,850 Megawatts of geothermal generating capacity as of 1999. Capacity is expected to double in coming years because of government incentives, and grow by an additional 15,000 Megawatts over the next decade to about 2% of total US electrical generating capacity. Although up-front costs make geothermal power appear expensive compared to other renewables, it clearly deserves more attention because of its ability to supply constant power. With the current cost per kWh competitive with wind power, geothermal would appear to be economically advantageous.
Currently identified geothermal resources could provide 25,000 MW - 50,000 MW of power in the US, or an upper limit of about 5% of current US electric generating capacity. Like wind and solar, much of potential geothermal power is located away from population centers and would require additional transmission lines to develop.
Ocean
Ocean power comes in many varieties including tidal, wave, current (e.g. the Gulf Stream), and thermal power (OTEC). The amount of energy ultimately available is high, but so are costs. Ocean powered generators must be extremely rugged to withstand the inevitable storms and the corrosive saltwater environment, thus they tend to be expensive. Finding sites where ocean power can be captured economically can be difficult. In the US, ocean power will likely remain a minor contributor, but in certain parts of the world prospects are looking more favorable.
Nuclear
Expanding the role of nuclear power using conventional fission technology would deplete uranium resources quickly enough that this approach would be at best a temporary solution. Widespread deployment of a new generation of breeder reactors will be required for nuclear fission to power the world for an extended period of time. A new fuel reprocessing technique has been proposed that would eliminate the availability of plutonium as an independent commodity, reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism. A program called GNEP has been established to determine the feasibility of this approach. It is estimated that breeder reactors could supply world electric power needs for up to one thousand years.
About 20% of US electrical power currently comes from 104 nuclear power plants. Sufficient nuclear power plants can be built to not only handle the nation's electrical power needs, but also to produce hydrogen and provide high temperature steam for other large scale chemical processes.
Tradeoffs
All sources of power have negative environmental effects. Windmills can kill birds, make disconcerting noise, and be an eyesore. Gigawatt solar power installations will take up a lot of real-estate. Dams for hydroelectric systems obstruct fish migration. Geothermal plants can release gasses and affect groundwater quality if not carefully managed. Some ocean power systems can induce sedimentation. Burning natural gas releases CO2. Burning coal without extensive pollution controls is one of the worst, leading to acid rain, global warming, and release of poisonous metals and radioactive materials. Coal mining routinely leads to environmental catastrophes and deaths of miners. Nuclear plants do not produce greenhouse gasses but do produce high level radioactive wastes that must be sequestered for tens of thousands of years. There are no perfect solutions.
Cost figures for various sources of electricity will change radically during the transition period as fuel costs change. The cost figures in Table 3 are from the US DOE and California Energy Commission as reported here for the year 2003, combined with more recent estimates of the cost of solar power based on PV concentrator cells reported here.
|
Type |
Cost (¢/kWh) |
|
Coal |
1-6 |
|
Nuclear |
1-15 |
|
Natural Gas |
2-6 |
|
Hydroelectric |
1-6 |
|
Biomass |
7-10 |
|
Oil |
1-3 |
|
Wind |
3-6 |
|
Geothermal |
2-8 |
|
Solar |
3-30 |
Table 3 — Cost of Energy by Source (2003, solar 2005)
It is conceivable that with extensive exploitation of solar, wind, geothermal, and ocean power that a large percentage of US electric power needs can be met. However, solar, wind, and many forms of ocean power are fickle: they are only available part of the time. Once coal and natural gas become scarce, there will still be a need for a very high capacity reliable energy source that can handle the "base load". There are ways to store large amounts of power for later use, including compressed air [Iowa], pumped hydroelectric, flow batteries, and others. However, some of these technologies require special conditions of geology and/or landscape, and some may be costly at the scales required. The cost of energy storage is not included in the figures in Table 3.
Nuclear power and geothermal energy sources suffer from similar economic factors, namely the majority of the cost must be paid up front, before there is any production of power. However, solar and wind energy sources are typically deployed in smaller units, so some parts of a big installation can start producing power before the entire installation is complete. In some situations, this will make solar and wind competitive even if the final cost per kWh is higher. For all renewables, the cost for fuel is nothing, while nuclear power plants must be refueled. Renewable energy systems will need refurbishing, but some components of such a system, such as the support structure for a solar concentrator or wind turbine, will be reusable even if the bearings, mirrors, photovoltaic components, or turbine blades need to be overhauled, upgraded or otherwise replaced. So, costs per kWh for a solar or wind installation may continue to drop after the design life has been exceeded. Nuclear power plants generally require an expensive decommissioning process.
One advantage of nuclear power over wind, solar, and geothermal is that it is not tied to a particular geographic location. Nuclear power plants can be built close to where the energy is to be consumed, reducing transmission costs. Another advantage over wind and solar is that nuclear power plants can provide consistent power output levels. However, they are most cost-effective at maximum output, so they are generally not the best choice for a variable source of power for meeting demand peeks. Additional disadvantages include high initial cost, hazards associated with radioactivity during operation, when managing waste, and when decommissioning a plant. Negative public sentiment is also a factor.
Summary
So, if transportation shifts to primarily electric, home and commercial heating and cooling switches from gas to primarily electric (e.g., in the form of geothermal heat pumps), and methane eventually must be produced using electricity, is it really feasible to generate that much electricity, say double current production, without natural gas or coal? The simple answer is "yes".
The complex answer is that this will be a huge undertaking. The total US installed generating capacity was over 1 million megawatts as of January 2005. Peak oil will have little effect on US electrical power generation. The end of natural gas and coal will eliminate about 70% of current US electrical power generation, or 700,000 megawatts. A total of 1,700,000 megawatts of new generation capacity will be needed by EOFF in order to provide double current electric power production.
As discussed above, the potential exists to generate this much power from any one of wind, solar, or nuclear power. The result will be some mix of these. These replacements generally require higher levels of capital investment than coal or gas fired power plants. This will result in a cost for energy that is somewhat higher relative to other costs than it is now, but certainly no more than twice as expensive once things have settled out. Additional investment in efficiency improvements and small-scale solar and geothermal units will help to tip the balance in favor of energy consumers.
Surviving the Transition: What Will Life Be Like?
During the transitional time from peak oil to the end of oil, life will be marked by a series of changes at least as dramatic as those of the last century. Much of the discussion to this point has been about new technologies based on various renewable resources and how these can be used to supplement or replace existing technologies. This is nothing new. Agriculture replaced hunting and gathering. Steam ships replaced sailing ships long ago. The automobile replaced the horse and buggy. Computers replaced manual calculation. People flocked to cities from the country and from small towns, and then spread into the suburbs. The only constant is change, and the future will not resemble the past.
Cheap energy has allowed the US to develop some very bad habits. Our cars, houses, buildings, appliances, factories and farms use energy as if it were almost free. And it has been pretty close to free. Gasoline is still cheaper than bottled water! The upside to this is that there is a lot of room for improvement without donning the proverbial "hair shirt".
The first years when oil production fails to meet demand will be the most difficult psychologically. During this time, people will begin adjusting to a new reality. As happened in the 70's, oil price shocks will drive the most energy dependent economies into recession, reducing demand for liquid fuels because of decreased economic activity. In addition, price shocks will help increase demand for more fuel efficient vehicles, motivate businesses to invest in energy efficiency improvements, and motivate people to live closer to where they work. Those who prepare early will fare better.
Improved energy efficiency is a necessity. New energy sources can and will be developed, but such a massive undertaking takes decades and will be costly. Efficiency improvements will reduce the impact of energy cost increases on personal and corporate budgets. Decreased energy demand due to efficiency improvements will make it possible for new energy supplies to catch up with demand sooner, stabilizing prices. In the midst of this trying time, we must plan for a future without any fossil fuels.
Transportation
Transportation is essential to modern economies. Raw materials must reach factories, finished goods must reach distributors and then retailers, consumers must be able to get to stores, workers must be able to get to work, and the resulting trash must be hauled. Transportation systems can be modified so that modern economies can continue to thrive without fossil fuels.
Private Transportation
I don't expect Americans will stop loving their automobiles any time soon. Over the next fifty years or so, the US fleet will be replaced many times. With each replacement, dramatic efficiency improvements will be introduced. Small diesel engines are already popular in European cars and can obtain 20-40% better fuel economy than equivalent gasoline engines. Hybrid technology can improve city gas mileage by as much as 50%. Diesel engines and hybrid technology can also be combined. These are just a speed bump on the road to an even better choice, the plug-in hybrid.
The first automobile manufacturer to put a plug-in hybrid on the market ahead of a fuel price spike will make a killing, provided they can build them fast enough. Owners of these vehicles will be able to "fill up" at home in their own garage on relatively inexpensive off-peak electricity rather than wait in line at the filling station for increasingly expensive and unavailable gasoline or diesel. Studies have shown that people would actually prefer plugging in over going to the gas station. Plug-in hybrids are already technically and economically feasible. Recent developments in lithium ion batteries, ultracapacitors, and even lead-acid batteries will make them a compelling choice. The plug-in hybrid will be the bridge vehicle for the transition from liquid fuels to electricity for light-duty transportation. I would buy a plug-in hybrid today if I could get one.
Widespread deployment of these technologies will help to compensate for years of decreasing fuel supplies and help to hold fuel prices somewhat steady. But, that's just the beginning. Use of lightweight but strong modern composites and other materials will result in additional savings. Some radical new designs will appear — ultra-light vehicles that look more like fish than automobiles and that get hundreds of miles per gallon (or per charge) could easily become the commuter vehicle of choice.
Over the next several decades, as battery and ultracapacitor technology continue to improve, automobiles will become primarily electric. The range on a charge will eventually rival range on a tank of gas, and recharging will be possible in a matter of minutes rather than hours. Purely electric vehicles will be simpler than hybrids because the liquid fuel engine and associated transmission and cooling systems can be eliminated. The drive train will consist of a battery pack, one or more electric motors, and control electronics. Variations on this configuration might include replacing or supplementing the battery pack with other sources of electricity, such as fuel cells. Because of their simplicity, these vehicles will be inexpensive, low-maintenance, and highly reliable.
Electric vehicles have numerous advantages. While fossil fuels remain, pollutants and greenhouse gasses (i.e., sequestering CO2) can be more easily managed at central power generation facilities than in the vehicle itself. Once fossil fuels are depleted, energy efficiency will be paramount. Compared to producing, distributing, and consuming hydrogen in a fuel cell, charging and discharging a battery or ultracapacitor is a more efficient process. Although the electrical distribution infrastructure will need to be upgraded over time, it already exists and can support charging of numerous vehicles at off-peak times.
Freight Transportation
Long distance freight hauling will be redistributed across air, truck, railroad, barge, and ship-based carriers according to their energy use and the economics of more expensive fuel. The redistribution will be one of degree rather than kind: the more expensive shippers will carry higher value and more time-critical cargo, just as they do now. But, the breakpoints will change: some air cargo will be shifted to trucks, and some truck cargo will be shifted to rail. The shifts will be large enough that inefficient carriers will be driven out of business. This is just one of many forms of "structural" efficiency improvement that will be driven by changing economic factors associated with peak oil. It will be a difficult time for energy inefficient companies and their employees.
A major transformation in the railroad business is already underway, and it is likely to continue as fuel prices rise. Railroads will carry the bulk of heavy long-distance freight by carrying cargo containers and semi trailers on rail cars. Rail transportation is much more fuel efficient than truck transportation per ton-mile. Rail lines that have been ripped up over the last several decades will be rebuilt as railroads reclaim business that has been lost to truckers and interstate highways. The result will be significant energy savings and less wear and tear on our highways as heavy truck traffic declines and passenger vehicles become lighter.
Although new generations of trucks will have better fuel efficiency, locomotives have the potential for even greater efficiency increases. Locomotives are already hybrid vehicles, so replacing the diesel engine plus electric generator with a large fuel cell is a smaller step for locomotive design than truck design. Another option with trains is to provide electric power directly from the grid, eliminating the need for liquid fuel. This approach is already popular in Japan and Europe. It is also used in the New York subway system, in a number of new light-rail systems, and assorted other places in the US.
Ocean shipping will remain viable for the foreseeable future. A ship can carry a huge amount of cargo a long distance on a relatively modest amount of fuel. Even so, low value cargoes are likely to give way to higher value cargoes. It can be expected that fewer raw materials will be shipped overseas for processing in favor of shipping higher valued finished products. For example, Australia and Africa might eventually produce and export more finished metal products rather than export bulky ores. This is another situation where "structural" energy efficiency improvement will occur.
As fuel prices rise, air travel will become less affordable and air travel volume will decline. It could eventually return to the status of luxury travel. There may be a revival in luxury rail travel in the US, but it unclear whether the industry will take advantage of the opportunity. Bus travel will increase to handle some of the passenger load. Both rail and bus transport are much more fuel efficient than air travel per passenger-mile.
Transportation Fuels
The near term challenge of peak oil is to survive the transportation fuels transition. If plug-in hybrids are widely adopted, and a healthy proportion of freight traffic shifts from trucks to rail, solving the near-term transportation fuels problem appears tractable. Early on, the two primary substitutes will be liquid fuels from biomass and liquid fuels from natural gas and coal. These will be supplemented in increasing amounts with electricity.
The US currently consumes about 140 Billion gallons of gasoline per year. The US produced nearly 4 billion gallons of ethanol in 2005, mostly from corn. The current goal is to produce 60 billion gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol. That goal appears to be achievable using an acceptable fraction of productive farmland devoted to energy crops, along with various forms of cellulose waste products from other sources. Construction of 1000 60 million gallon per year cellulosic ethanol plants will be required to produce that much fuel.
Over the next several decades liquid fuels from petroleum will also be supplemented in increasing amounts from coal, natural gas, and biomass. This process has already begun. Some of these fuels are no more expensive to produce than gasoline or diesel from $60/barrel oil, but since it takes many years to build large facilities and get them into production, supply increases from these sources are unlikely to completely offset declines in oil production. When combined with other sources of ethanol, synthetic and bio-diesel from various sources, increased use of mass transit, more efficient vehicles, and less travel in general, it appears that a balance can be achieved. Clearly, this is a lot to accomplish in forty years or so.
What will fuel the freight transportation industries when natural gas and coal become scarce? Even with electrified railways, it seems likely that liquid fuels will continue to be required for some time. It's difficult to envision a battery pack capable of powering a large truck, bulldozer, jet airplane, or ship. Airlines may shift to slush hydrogen, while other carriers shift to hydrogen fuel cells. Ships have the option of using sails either as a primary or supplemental means of propulsion. Nuclear power is another option for ships.
Homes
Currently, 53% of homes are heated with natural gas, 9% with fuel oil, and 29% with electricity. Natural gas supplies in North America are in short supply with little prospect for a significant increase. There are plans to import more liquefied natural gas (LNG), generate natural gas from coal, and to produce coal bed methane, which will delay the day of reckoning for gas furnaces for a while. But, as natural gas and electricity prices continue to rise, there will be renewed interest in saving money by reducing energy consumption at home.
A lot can be done to improve home energy efficiency. For older homes the most cost-effective gains usually come from improved insulation, windows, and sealing. Careful selection of appliances can also help. Fluorescent lamps use about one-third the electricity of incandescent lamps. Simply replacing all standard light bulbs with compact fluorescents would make a substantial difference. Another easy and inexpensive upgrade is to replace old fashioned thermostats with programmable ones that can adjust the temperature according to the owner's schedule of activity.
Geothermal heat pumps (a.k.a. "ground-source heat pump" or "earth-energy system") provide more energy efficient heating than any furnace, and much more energy efficient cooling than any standard air conditioner. In addition, these systems can provide hot water with little additional energy cost. Initial costs are higher than for a typical furnace, but energy savings can often make up the difference in just a few years (calculate savings here). The long term goal for the country should be to move all residential heating and cooling to geothermal heat pumps.
Recent developments in solar energy bode well for increased installations of home solar energy systems. The first small cost-effective concentrator-cell rooftop systems are now available. CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide) is a non-silicon thin-film photovoltaic (PV) converter then can be applied to various substrates. Recent developments in South Africa have dramatically reduced the cost of mass production of CIGS films, and a number of companies are preparing competing CIGS products, as well as other thin-film solar PV products. The payback period for a modern solar roof can be as little as seven years. With thin-film solar, the payback period should be even less — maybe a lot less. Building owners will pay more up front for new roofing with built-in solar cells, but in time will end up with a roof that has paid for itself, and then continues to pay dividends. You can't say that about asphalt shingles. Energy from the sun can also be used for cost-effective water heating, lighting and space heating.
For new housing, amazing energy savings are possible. My daughters spent some time this summer working on a home being built by Habitat for Humanity that was designed as a "Net-Zero" home. On average, this house will supply all of its own power, drawing power from the grid at times, and selling it back at other times. Such homes can be as comfortable as conventional homes while saving the owners an estimated $45,000 in energy bills over 30 years, at current prices. When the country gets serious about saving energy, building standards should be revised to draw on Net-Zero project experience.
Communities
American cities are not organized with energy efficiency in mind. People tend to live far from where they work and waste ridiculous amounts of time and energy (both gasoline and emotional energy) sitting in their cars every day. It's astounding what people will put up with once they've become accustomed to it. In addition, many city centers suffer from horrible traffic congestion, which exacerbates these problems. A number of urban planners are considering these problems and generating some good ideas. Among these ideas are mixed use zoning, improved mass transit of various types, and new building codes requiring more energy-efficient building and houses.
The city where I live, Denver, is in the process of making many such changes. A light-rail system has been constructed over the last decade or so and it continues to grow. A small part of the city center is closed to private vehicles and served by regular shuttle service. Some new developments include housing, shopping, dining, and professional services within a small, walkable distance. The Denver city government has also looked at its own energy usage, installed LED stop lights, and started using a bio-diesel mix for its trucks. That's a start, but even more radical and creative measures will be required as energy costs rise. The concept of a sewage treatment plant supplying most of its own energy has been applied successfully in a number of locations. With any luck there are many such ideas that can be proven and then copied in communities across the country.
Suburbs
Suburbs will be transformed, not be abandoned. The most commonly used services will be redistributed so that they are more conveniently located for their customers in the suburbs. It's easier to move a small number of businesses than a large number of houses. How exactly this will work is difficult to predict, but here are some ideas. Zoning laws will be changed to allow more home businesses. Most of these will be professional services of various types, doctors, accountants, computer professionals, etc. Also, more business will figure out how to let employees work from home part of the time. Schools will become smaller and more local to reduce the transportation burden on parents, teachers, and administrators. Ultra-giant-box stores will give way to closer, smaller, stores that are stocked with a larger variety of items. They will still be called Wal-Mart (just kidding). Either some houses can be removed to make room for new buildings, or the houses can simply be converted into schools, medical centers, shops, and the like. The trend towards more shopping online will probably continue. The efficiency of package carriers will improve and buying online will still be cheaper and more convenient than traveling a long distance for hard-to-find items.
Waste
An abundant renewable resource in American cities is garbage. We pay to have our garbage hauled away and then carefully arranged in giant structures called landfills where it will sit forever. What a silly thing to do. Garbage contains a significant quantity of paper products, plastics, and food waste. During certain times of year there are also large quantities of yard and garden waste. There are a couple of simple ways to turn this into a power source. One is to simply burn it. The second is to set up the land fill as a giant anaerobic digester and extract methane from it. Both have been done successfully. As recycling becomes a necessity and not just a good idea, valuable recyclables will be separated from the general garbage stream.
Industry
During the great transition, jobs in the energy industry will experience huge boom and bust cycles as the balance tips from one energy source to another and back again. Laws regarding CO2 generation and sequestering will play a major role in determining which energy sources are most in demand. Manufacturing businesses that are highly dependent on oil or natural gas as inputs and compete in global markets will experience a great deal of upheaval as supply availability and shifts from one part of the globe to another. We are seeing this today with ammonia production. There will be a great deal of structural unemployment due to these changes. Due to the highly interconnected nature of the modern economy, businesses could fold like a row of dominoes, to be replaced by something more modern and efficient. It will be interesting times indeed.
Situations where energy efficiency improvements can be made abound in industry. Refitting or redesigning factories to save money on energy is likely to be a growing business. In some cases, businesses can save money, save or even produce energy, eliminate environmental problems, and create a marketable product, all in one fell swoop. Often it requires thinking outside of the normal operating parameters of the business, or the application of engineering disciplines not central to the business. Here are some examples:
Steel Making
At Michigan Tech University they are developing a new process for making steel using microwave energy instead of a traditional blast furnace. The energy savings and manufacturing efficiency of this new technique could cut production costs by as much as 50%. Adoption of this technique could lead to a revival in domestic steel manufacturing. One of my daughters is studying materials science at MTU and got to try out this technique in one of her classes.
Cogeneration
Another more generally applicable example is cogeneration. Many businesses need large quantities of both process heat and electricity. All forms of electric power generation that involve burning a fuel generate waste heat. The waste heat constitutes about 65% of the energy in the fuel. By generating electricity locally and using the waste heat for process heat, building heat, and other purposes, the efficiency of the cogeneration plant can reach 90% or more. Waste heat from other sources in an industrial operation should also be viewed as a potential resource. This technique could prove valuable for extending the lifetime of fossil fuel supplies while reducing emissions.
Refinery Waste
What can be done with 1000 truckloads a day of waste petroleum coke from a refining facility? The old answer was to ship it to China where it was burned as a very dirty fuel. The new answer is extract and burn the hydrogen to generate 500 megawatts of power, and capture the CO2 and inject it into oil wells to extract oil that had previously been unrecoverable. Enhanced recovery is unlikely to delay peak oil significantly, but it may slow the rate of decline after peak oil and make the transition easier.
Geothermal and Solar
In addition to generating electric power, lower temperature geothermal resources can be used for industrial process heat, and building space heating, both of which help reduce demand from other sources of power. There are also many opportunities for small-scale solar power installations to make a big impact on corporate energy costs and the nation's overall power supply picture.
Agriculture
Agriculture is in the process of shifting from being a food business to being a food, energy, and materials feedstock business. This shift has already started, as already discussed in relation to bio-fuels and bio-plastics. Produce production will move out of the sun belts and into greenhouses distributed across the country. Greenhouses will use waste heat from power plants and heavy industry to stay warm in the winter. Locally grown produce will be available year-round, and will easily compete with produce shipped in from other countries because of increased transportation costs.
Many processes associated with agriculture generate waste. Besides the obvious cornstalks and wheat straw, there are such gruesome collections of stuff as slaughterhouse waste and chicken manure. One of the most odious is hog manure. When treated as a waste problem hog manure is a massive problem indeed (e.g., North Carolina, Iowa). When treated as a resource, to generate electricity, heat, and fertilizer, for example [1, 2, 3], hog manure is a valuable part of a hog feeding operation. Feedlots of all types will be integrated into the energy production and fertilizer businesses. Waste products from food processing and slaughterhouse operations can likewise be converted from an economic and energy liability into an asset.
Wild Cards
I have endeavored to avoid basing this scenario on unproven technologies and resources. Turning points in history are often based on some totally unexpected discovery or invention which rapidly makes itself essential to modern life. I've listed a few items here that are not totally unexpected but could significantly alter the rules after peak oil.
Undiscovered Oil and Natural Gas
If there are any remaining undiscovered oil or natural gas fields of giant proportions, they are well hidden. One place they could be hiding is the Arctic Ocean. Global warming is rapidly melting the ice flows that cover the Arctic Ocean, and areas are becoming open to exploration. It is not inconceivable, though considered unlikely by most experts, that large oil fields could be found in other parts of the world. Such finds would only delay the inevitable, and could have the undesirable effect of convincing people to delay pursuit of efficiency gains and alternative power sources. If new finds are timed so as to simply slow the decline of world oil supplies, it would allow for a longer, smoother, transition period. There's no way to know how this will play out. Global warming considerations will strongly influence how any new reserves are developed.
Methane Hydrates
Methane hydrates are an ice-like combination of methane and water that has been found in great quantities on the ocean floor. Methane hydrates have the potential to be a huge new energy source, possibly greater than all other known fossil fuel reserves combined. Methane is also twenty times effective as a greenhouse gas than CO2, and it unknown how global warming will affect methane hydrates. Techniques for extracting methane from methane hydrate formations are under development. If economical techniques can be developed, exploitation of this resource will be subject to the same global warming considerations as other fossil fuels, although burning methane is generally less damaging than burning oil or coal.
If the promise of methane hydrates comes to fruition, it might be possible to replace other more damaging fossil fuels with methane for many decades. Also, since methane is a key component of many industrial processes including fertilizer production, it would delay the day of reckoning due to the peaking of regular natural gas resources, and allow more time for development of a renewable methane production infrastructure.
Techno-Fantasy
The two technologies discussed below, fusion and ocean fertilization, do not yet exist as available products or proven processes, and could justifiably be labeled "techno-fantasy". However, there are results from basic research that give some hope that these technologies could completely change the rules of the energy game.
Fusion
Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of power generation. It is the power source of stars. The fuel, deuterium and tritium, is for practical purposes, inexhaustible. The fuel is not a terrorism or proliferation threat, and the only radioactive waste problem is the reactor vessel itself when it is decommissioned. A number of countries are participating in a joint project to build a next generation "tokamak" reactor that may prove the technical viability of this approach. However, the cost and complexity of the reactor may prevent it from ever becoming economically viable.
Other paths to nuclear fusion may exist. Recent experiments have shown that nuclear fusion can be achieved under circumstances previously considered impossible, including cold fusion (LENR), sonofusion, and pyroelectric fusion. Some of these experiments remain controversial, but support is increasing as evidence accumulates. Even if the devices used in these experiments are not immediately useful for power generation on a commercial scale, a breakthrough in the scientific understanding of nuclear fusion may lead to new devices with mind-boggling capabilities. This is all very speculative and false hope should be discouraged. At the same time, the scientific community should be encouraged to pursue alternative paths to fusion with vigor and a sense of urgency.
Ocean Fertilization
No discussion of peak oil is complete without a discussion of global warming. Even if peak oil doesn't happen for decades, as certain optimists are predicting, it's possible that burning of all fossil fuels will have to be sharply curtailed in order to save the planet from a complete meltdown and the resulting flooding of all coastal cities and low-lying land areas. Not only will we have to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere, but we may have to take steps to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere in order to save Florida, Holland, Venice, New York, and a few other minor assets.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with ocean fertilization? The oceans constitute 2/3 of the surface area of the earth. They are the biggest "sink" for CO2 in the Carbon Cycle. Besides accepting CO2 in dissolved form, phytoplankton in the oceans consume CO2 in order to create calcite shells which fall to the ocean floor when they die. To understand how effective this process is, consider the amount of limestone in the world. This sedimentary rock was initially created at the bottom of ancient oceans by this process. In addition, limestone becomes marble through a metamorphic process. There's a lot of carbon bound up in rock.
However, the oceans are in a constant state of starvation. Phytoplankton can only grow in the top few meters of water where sunlight penetrates. Nutrients added to this layer, from dust storms, volcanoes, and upwelling currents, quickly fall to deeper waters where they have no effect. Studies have shown that adding nutrients to the ocean, primarily iron, have a dramatic, immediate, but short lived effect on plankton growth. The studies also indicate that this method may not be affordable of done solely for the purpose of CO2 removal. However, that has not stopped some entrepreneurs from delving more deeply into the business aspects of this process.
Plankton are the bottom of the ocean food chain, and when plankton are plentiful, other creatures have plenty to eat. It has been estimated that fertilizing plankton in fisheries could increase productivity by as much as a factor of 400. For a hungry human population faced with decimated fisheries, this is worth taking note of. Some fish farmers are looking into harvesting plankton (without fertilization) to feed their farmed fish. It might be more cost effective to simply encourage the growth of plankton by fertilization.
Oddly enough, it may be fossil fuel companies that are the first to pursue this method of CO2 reduction aggressively. Fishermen tend not to have a great deal of ready cash to put into projects like this. Fossil fuel companies may be legislated out of existence if they can't come up with a way to stop a global meltdown. Clearly there will be legal impediments to implementing ocean fertilization on anything other than an experimental scale, and the overall environmental impacts are not really understood at this point. A reduced rate of fossil fuel consumption and increased use of renewable energy would have more predictable beneficial effects.
In Conclusion
I began by looking at whether a modern society roughly equivalent to today's can exist without fossil fuels. Trillions of dollars are going to be spent on new energy and industrial infrastructure that will have a serviceable lifetime of 50 years or more. Houses often last more than 100 years. If peak oil is handled by pretending that peak gas and peak coal will never happen, some of the new infrastructure will become useless sooner than intended, and that will be expensive. Because of global warming, we may need to drastically reduce use of fossil fuels sooner rather than later. The solution to this problem is similar, though not identical, to running out of fossil fuels.
It turns out that by a combination of efficiency improvements, alternative energy production, and ubiquitous recycling, modern society can transform itself from hopelessly doomed to collapse into a sustainable form. The transition will not be easy, but it can be done. Some key points:
We are accustomed to a great deal of change from year to year. These are revolutionary times, and the revolution continues. Let me end with an example of how different our current culture of plenty is from the culture of frugality created by the Great Depression. Twenty five years ago, when I was engaged to the woman who would become my first wife, we would visit her grandmother from time to time. As we were preparing to leave, she would often give us gifts of carefully folded wads of used aluminum foil and washed out used plastic bottles. It sounds like a joke, doesn't it? She wasn't mentally ill. Those items still had value and were not to be wasted. She thought we could use them. The future will be more like that.
About the Author
My mom got me Kunstler's The Long Emergency this year for Christmas. I found a lot of the reasoning compelling and the conclusions terrifying. Thanks mom. I started researching the issue and looking for solutions to problems that Kunstler deemed intractable. While I respect everything he has done to bring peak oil to the attention of the world, I find myself somewhat more optimistic that we will be able to preserve certain aspects of the modern lifestyle. This scenario is the best I could come up with in a few short months of research and analysis. It has changed a lot since the first draft, and continues to change as I find new interesting tidbits of information.
My step dad was a hobby farmer. Over the years, his hobby grew in size to a respectable operation. I've plowed fields, driven combines, put up hay, run cows through the chute, put up fences, and done every other thing that a Midwest farmhand might do. I'm Navy trained in nuclear power and I was the top student in my class. I have operated nuclear powered machinery, which includes pumps, turbines, evacuators, absorption air conditioners, evaporators, and everything else in an engine room on a ship. I decided to switch to computer programming after I got out of the Navy, and that's what I do now. I like to build things and have built bathrooms, stone walls, decks, furniture, a sailboat, a bicycle, and a few other things. I'm a technophile. I enjoy understanding how things work, and I have hands-on experience with a lot of different types of machinery and tools.
I'm 50 and I expect to see peak oil and its initial repercussions. I have two daughters who will see the full consequences.
My Soap Box
One of the biggest problems with the whole peak oil mess is deciding which estimates to believe. Out of all oil reserve estimates where conclusive evidence exists, the companies producing oil from those reserves have consistently overestimated the remaining volume of oil. This happened in the US, the North Sea, Oman, and Kuwait. I have found no contrary examples.
Regardless of the timing, energy independence is good for the economy, and good for national security. Building a new alternative energy infrastructure will create jobs for Americans and improve our balance of trade.
Fighting over the dwindling supplies of remaining oil is the ultimate in stupidity. The money wasted on war would be better spent building a new energy infrastructure.
Jeff Becker
jeffrey.becker(at)att.net
